Black Law Student Discussion Board

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Yo Nupe, I see you representing Pi chapter. I was made at the Mu chapter, fall '96. Hopefully you know your single letter chapters so I don't have to tell you where that is.

Let me give you some words on Howard and Law School in general.

First and foremost, the Law School application process is a dirty game. Let me just get that out there for you right now. You'll hear it 1000 times but get your LSAT as high as possible. At this point your GPA is pretty much going to be whatever it is if you're a senior, so don't worry to much about that. Hopefully you are around 3.0 or better. If you are lower than 3.0 then you need a hard ass major on your transcript and a kick ass LSAT score.

In continuing with the dirty game of applying to law school, you may or may not know that law schools and law firms are all about rankings and numbers. As in who's number one. Howard is the best Law School among the HBCU group, however even as such it is still a 3rd Tier Law School. I'm assuming you're like me when you started out and didn't know about all this tier talk but 1st tier is the top 50, 2nd tier is the next 50, 3rd tier is the next 50, 4th tier is the last 50. Why is this important? Because Big Time law firms are more prone to hire from the first 2 Tiers as opposed to the last 2 tiers. If you plan on going into your own practice immediately after law school then it really does NOT matter. I have a chapter brother who graduated from a 4th tier law school in the midwest, a couple years out of law school he opens his own criminal law practice in DC, he just made over $150,000 last year by his damn self.

So rankings are important in general because you know you will be attending a better school for those 3 years, but don't get caught up in the rankings like some of the cats on this board. We all learn the same law, regardless of where you go. Some people will just look better on paper.

DO NOT attend a school that is not ABA accredited. I know FAM is getting their stuff together, but if they ain't got it together by fall '05 when you attend do not @#!* with them cats. Period. It will be a step back for you and your career as a lawyer in taking the Bar exam if you attend a law school not ABA accredited.

Also, like dnw2007 said, expand your horizons. I was torn between Howard & Rutgers Law School in Jersey where I will be attending this fall for a very distinct reason that I think you can appreciate. On the books, Rutgers is blowing Howard out of the water, but that's not what had me torn between the two. It was that experience that you can only get at an HBCU that had me going back and forth between 'em. Plus you don't wanna be the only one in each class representing the entire black race once some idiot decides to start talking reckless. So each school I applied to had to have a strong diverse student body. In the end, all the lawyers (frat included) I talked to told me the same advice:

Go to the BEST law school that you can get into.

any more questions just holla back.

YITB,

Burning Sands

Logged

nathanielmark

Yo Nupe, it's good to hear from you and thanks for the info. I do know my single letter chapters by the way I graduated from Morehouse in '01, so I didn't get a chance to pledge undergrade. Pi was off the yard for 7 yrs for urrumm....well...you know .

You are correct in that I didn't know anything about the 4 tear, 3,2, 1 stuff. Blak Enterprise put Morehouse as the #1 undergrad for African-American males, and other reports put us at like 30 something. @#!* Um! For me, I would put Howard at the top of the pack bro. #1. The only way to understand that is to attend a place like Morehouse and sleep in the same dorm as Dr. Martin Luther King, Spike Lee, Maynord Jackson, etc....some inspiring *&^%. Anyway, I did my best on the LSAT. I took it last Monday and I feel good about it. I will take the other cats advice and apply to other schools.

I see that alot of people are getting put on the WL at Howard though. Over 3/4 of the people at HL are from HBCUs, and they also have a lot of women there. I hear that they are having a problem getting qualified African-American males. Who knows.....we will see pretty soon. Indeed, this is a very dirty process. Stressful as *&^%.

HBCU.EDU - Yeah I feel you. It definitely is inspiring to attend an HBCU where a lot of the greats of our community were made. If you don't mind me asking, what ballpark was your LSAT score in during any practice tests you might have taken before the real thing? That will give me a better idea on which way you should go with the law school process.

Again, Howard is a mixed bag. You can go to Howard Law and land a pretty good job. And Howard has a pretty high job placement rate. 94% of the grads had job offers at graduation. The year before that it was 97%

But here's the thing though, if you go to Howard you have to do well. There are some schools, like the Tier 1 schools, Yale, Harvard, NYU, Columbia, Stanford, etc. that you can just go to and pretty much you are guaranteed a great job when you get out. Well Howard (much like any other school that is NOT a Tier 1) is not one of those schools and as such, you gotta be at the top of your class to get recognized. So if you go to Howard, you need to be at the top of Howard, you can't be 1/2 steppin and expect to land a well paying gig being at the bottom of the Howard class. Sure you're get A job but it won't be a good job.

HBCU.EDU - Yeah I feel you. It definitely is inspiring to attend an HBCU where a lot of the greats of our community were made. If you don't mind me asking, what ballpark was your LSAT score in during any practice tests you might have taken before the real thing? That will give me a better idea on which way you should go with the law school process.

Again, Howard is a mixed bag. You can go to Howard Law and land a pretty good job. And Howard has a pretty high job placement rate. 94% of the grads had job offers at graduation. The year before that it was 97%

But here's the thing though, if you go to Howard you have to do well. There are some schools, like the Tier 1 schools, Yale, Harvard, NYU, Columbia, Stanford, etc. that you can just go to and pretty much you are guaranteed a great job when you get out. Well Howard (much like any other school that is NOT a Tier 1) is not one of those schools and as such, you gotta be at the top of your class to get recognized. So if you go to Howard, you need to be at the top of Howard, you can't be 1/2 steppin and expect to land a well paying gig being at the bottom of the Howard class. Sure you're get A job but it won't be a good job.